This resource remains available under SCIE’s commitment to share knowledge and information but please be alert to changes in policy or practice since publication. This resource was last updated in October 2006.

Learning, teaching and assessment of law in social work education

Innovation in learning, teaching and assessment of law in social work education: Why teach law?

Helping students engage with law as a component of social work educationOpen

Law is a prescribed element of the curriculum
(DH, 2002). However, in presenting
to students the rationale for law learning, educators
can include a broader range of
factors than merely those relating to technical
knowledge.

Discussion with social workers and students has
identified that in practice the legal
rules are open to manipulation, abuse and unlawful
interpretation. Preston-Shoot
(2000a) has provided some examples. Instances
of this provided by experts by
experience include:

social workers exploiting people’s
lack of knowledge to deny them access to
assessment, services (such as direct payments)
and complaints procedures

managers providing misleading advice and
direction about when and how an
agency can balance resource considerations
against need, or about what particular
legislation mandates, requires or enables

an agency’s refusal to listen to another’s
concerns about risk to a young person or
adult

agencies enforcing blanket policies and
practitioners being uncertain whether and
how these can be challenged

uncertainty about what information can be
shared and with whom, for instance
about sex offenders or people who
have been investigated but not prosecuted.

It is important not to underestimate the space
created by the legal rules for
practitioners to promote individual and social
change. For instance, there are
few absolute duties in social work law. Most
are discretionary and the key task is
to ensure that students and social workers know
how that discretion should be
exercised, drawing on values, knowledge and statutory
guidance, and are skilled in
its use to support sensitive, innovative and
informed practice. The legal rules can be
used to promote social inclusion, human rights
and citizenship, to enhance human caring and to counteract
discrimination and exclusion, providing this discourse
is
revealed in learning about the shape, content and
application of the legal rules. This
understanding can help students to understand the
complexity of the relationship
between law and social work.

Why study law?

Law can both enshrine and curtail
rights, and is therefore an important
component of ethical practice

Law is a core mandate for social work practice,
and as such demands
critical analysis and understanding

Law is a social construct reflecting society
and culture

Law is an outcome of politics and ideology

Social work should be commenting on social
conditions from which legal
rules emerge or change

Legal knowledge and skills enable social
workers to work alongside
service users, to help them secure
their rights and achieve positive
outcomes

Social workers need to engage authoritatively
with legal practitioners and
settings

Knowledge can decay over time and practitioners
need skills in updating
their legal understandings

Practice in agencies is influenced by other
imperatives that can lead to
practice that is, knowingly
or unconsciously, unlawful

Practice can be lawful but unethical, and
practitioners need to be able to
engage with the interface
between law and ethics

Objectives for law learning

To acquire technical knowledge of
the legal rules and skills in researching
law

To locate law learning and practice in an
ethical base

To locate law learning and practice in a
rights-based framework

To acquire knowledge and skills to critique
the use of legal rules

Understanding the purpose of legal knowledgeOpen

The social work law curriculum is, in part, about
enabling knowledge acquisition.
However, knowledge for what? By applying one model
(Shaw et al, 2004), which
conceives of four uses of knowledge to social work
law learning, the purpose of
learning might be presented as:

To develop understanding

How do the legal rules strike a balance
between conflicting imperatives, such
as autonomy versus protection and
rights versus risks, which social
workers must routinely navigate?

To develop, analyse and
review policy

How is judicial interpretation of human
rights legislation impacting on policy?

To develop, analyse and
review practice

How do organisational policies, procedures
and cultures compromise
lawful and ethical practice? How can
practitioners draw on legal knowledge,
such as policy guidance, to support
ethical practice?

To develop research-
mindedness

How can legal research skills be used
to identify and update relevant
knowledge? What research evidence
exists on the outcomes of action using
legal powers and duties?

Such knowledge, applied in practice situations,
might challenge lack of confidence,
for example when working alongside legal practitioners,
and assist practitioners in
negotiating difficult encounters with service users.
So, taking the impact of restrictive
organisational policy on practice as an example
of a dilemma encountered by social
workers, learning might focus on the legal rules
relating to employer/employee
relations, professional registration, whistle blowing
and accountability/duty of care,
how they contribute to understanding, policy analysis
and practice development and
where research effort might focus to uncover helpful
sources.

Staging students’ learning and building critical competence as a learning objectiveOpen

In two and three-year programmes, educators have
an opportunity to visit and revisit law in different
ways. Learning outcomes should enable students
to acquire and build on knowledge and skills in
a developmental way as they progress through a
programme, and from one (undergraduate) programme
to another (postgraduate). This necessitates a
phased approach to the introduction of critical
perspectives on the core knowledge base as students
develop their subject-specific understanding and
their generic intellectual skills. The example
below illustrates how differentiation is preserved
between two different undergraduate levels, incorporating
critical reflection as students progress from level
1 to level 2, while still leaving potential for
further development at postgraduate (M) level.

Staged learning - Liverpool John Moores University

Level 1: Introduction to Social Work Law

This module aims to provide a general introduction
to the English legal
system and to key areas of social work law, and
a consideration of legal rights
and values. After completing the module students
should be able to:

demonstrate an understanding of the legal
system

access and use legal resources

discuss ways in which the law can provide
and protect rights, and counter
discrimination

demonstrate an understanding of the key
principles of child care law,
community care law, mental health
law and criminal justice.

The module is assessed through a two-hour,
seen exam, consisting of case
studies for which students are able to gather
relevant legal information and
plan their answers.

Level 2: Law for Social Work Practice

This module aims to build on existing knowledge
of social work law, to
provide a greater insight into the legal
context of social work practice and
thus help provide the legal skills and understanding
expected of a social
worker. After completing the module students
should be able to:

demonstrate an ability to apply relevant
law in social work practice and
have
a critical and analytical understanding
of service delivery standards and the
powers and duties of social workers

demonstrate a working knowledge and understanding
of key areas of welfare
law that are significant to service
users

analyse the tensions and dilemmas that arise
in the implementation of the
law in social work practice

demonstrate a commitment to the anti-oppressive
practice of social work
law.

The module is assessed through
coursework consisting of two case
studies of
1,500 words.

Level 4: Law for Social Work Practice

In this module students critically examine
current social work law and its
underlying principles and values,
to evaluate the legal context of
social work
practice and thus help provide the legal
skills and critical understanding
expected of a social worker. After
completing the module students should
be
able to:

demonstrate expertise in knowledge
and understanding of the significance
and limitations of the
law in providing and protecting
rights and countering
discrimination, and the ways in which the
law might be used to promote
anti-oppressive social work practice

display
competence in handling a complex area of legal
knowledge and skills;
display understanding of
the key principles and legal
framework for child
care law, community care law, mental health
law, criminal justice law and
key areas of welfare law that
are significant to service users;
apply relevant
current law to social work practice, and
know how to independently update
and research legal knowledge
and understanding

critically analyse
the tensions and dilemmas that arise in the
implementation
of the law in social
work practice.

Helping students to develop a critical perspective on lawOpen

If we accept that students should be critical
thinkers as well as plumbers, how might
critical perspectives on law be reflected in learning
and teaching? One way is to
provide a conceptual frame for understanding the
complexity of the relationship
between law and practice.

It is not uncommon for law to be presented as
the clear map which should, above
all else, guide social work practice. Students
can be introduced to a critique that
interrogates this assumption (explored in greater
detail in Braye and Preston-Shoot,
2006b).

Library exercises and quizzes can be used
to illustrate how law is drawn from a range of
sources, such as government guidance and judicial
decisions. Such research should cause students
to look beyond statute (an example of a quiz
follows later in this section).

The redrawing of the legal maps,
through the evolution of the legal framework,
can be demonstrated by comparing and contrasting
different areas of law. The development of youth
justice law since 1991, for example, can be juxtaposed
with the evolution of provision for children
in need since 1989. A time line can be drawn
to show what factors contributed to the framing
and subsequent reform of a legal mandate. For
instance, significant research studies, policy
imperatives, critical incidents, inquiry reports
and practice evaluations have all impacted at
various times on the development of the Children
Act 1989 and subsequently the Children Act 2004.

The contradictory nature of legal maps may
be illustrated by reference, for example, to
definitions of disability (National Assistance
Act 1948 and Disability Discrimination Act 1995),
or by contradictions in the extent to which children
and young people may exercise choice over medical
assessment and treatment.

Anti-discrimination legislation provides
an example of an incomplete legal map, with only
very recent additions under European Directives
on age and sexuality adding to longer-standing
UK statutory provision on discrimination on grounds
of 'race' or gender. Equally, many aspects of
social work practice stand outside any obvious
legal mandate.

The reliance on law to overcome perceived
shortcomings in practice indicates the extent
to which other maps for practice may be overlooked.
Professional values and ethics arguably provide
an equally important map, which at times may
lead practitioners to oppose legal rules, such
as those on asylum and immigration.

In practice, legal rules must compete with
other features of the professional landscape - the reality of daily lives that do not neatly fall into boxes, the conflictual nature
of claims to rights and allocations of responsibilities, the impact of organisational
resources and priorities.

The process of exploring critical perspectives
with students involves challenging assumptions
about the law's clarity, while also
encouraging students to see this feature
as an opportunity (for rights-based interpretations)
rather than as a constraint.

Helping students to identify the links between law and ethicsOpen

In the early stages of learning, it is useful
to engage interest in the relationship
between law and ethics through the use of examples
with which students may
already be familiar, perhaps as a result of press
coverage. Asking students to discuss
the ethical dilemmas inherent in such a case assists
in illustrating that the law has
as many shades of grey, and therefore potential
for debate and critical analysis, as
any other aspect of the social work curriculum.
Some high profile examples are given
below, but it is recommended that the content of
this type of exercise be made as
topical as possible.

Introductory case discussions

Diane had motor neurone disease. She had little
movement and no mobility,
and was dependent on 24-hour support for all
her physical needs. She was
aware of the terminal prognosis for her condition,
and wished to end her
own life before she entered the final stages,
in order to avoid the inevitable
distress to herself and her husband, who cared
for her. She did not, however,
have the physical capability to take her own
life, but her husband was willing
to assist her suicide. She asked the court to
guarantee that her husband
should not be prosecuted after her death, claiming
that the right to life
(Article 2 of the European Convention on Human
Rights [ECHR]) implied also
a right to die, and that preventing her from
exercising this right was in breach
of her right to protection from inhuman and degrading
treatment (Article 3,
ECHR). The court ruled against Diane’s
application.

Babies Jodie and Mary were conjoined twins. Mary,
the weaker twin, was
reliant on Jodie’s heart to keep her alive.
If the twins were separated, Mary
would die. Jodie was in better health, but Mary’s
dependence on her was
sapping her strength. If the twins were not separated,
Jodie’s heart would
keep both of them alive for a while, but the
strain would eventually overtax
her system and they would both die. Their parents
argued against medical
intervention on religious grounds. The doctors
responsible for the babies’
care asked the court to rule on how they should
proceed. The court ruled
that the twins should be separated.

What rights and responsibilities do
you think the people involved here
have?

What principles might you use to balance
the competing claims?

Why do you think
the judges made the decisions they did?

Similarly, examples may be drawn from literature. 'The
Caucasian Chalk Circle’, a
play by Bertolt Brecht, dramatises the judgement
of Solomon, describing a process
of decision making about disputed 'ownership’ of
a child. Written at a time of intense
disillusion with how justice was expressed, the
text engages the audience with tough
questions about the ethics of legal decision making.

Exploring the development of students’ knowledge and attitudesOpen

The prospect of studying law commonly provokes
anxiety among social workers
in training. This self-audit invites them to focus
on their images of law and legal
practitioners, and on their knowledge and skills
for practising social work law. Selfaudits
are a useful beginning for reflecting on the interface
between law and social
issues, for highlighting connections between law,
values and professional practice,
and for facilitating discussion of experience and
feelings. They also provide a baseline
against which learning can be reviewed and change
in perception can be mapped as
the self-audit is used during, on conclusion and
after formal learning (Preston-Shoot,
2000b).